Muhammad Ali’s Photographer Wins $2.75 Million in Copyright Lawsuit
Muhammad Ali’s personal photographer, Michael Gaffney, won a landmark copyright infringement lawsuit against Authentic Brands Group (ABG), securing damages totaling $2.75 million.
Represented by Glaser Weil partner Robert Allen, associate Jason Linger, and paralegal Rebecca Feldman, award-winning New Jersey-based photographer Michael Gaffney filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last month alleging that American management company Authentic Brands Group (ABG) and its subsidiary, Muhammad Ali Enterprises, had committed “direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement” of 11 of Gaffney’s photographs of Muhammad Ali, captured when Gaffney was the famed boxer’s photographer in the late 1970s.
Gaffney and his legal representation claimed that ABG had used Gaffney’s images after the photographer’s contract with ABG had ended, showing Gaffney’s photos to millions of people and distributing them illegally to numerous companies, including TAG Heuer, for advertising campaigns.
After a six-day trial, the jury found ABG liable on 23 counts of copyright infringement. The jury also found that the defendants committed willful infringement, exhibiting “knowledge of or reckless disregard of Gaffney’s copyrighted works.”
Gaffney’s photos, captured in 1977 and 1978, were used on various merchandise and on ABG’s commercial social media accounts. Eight witnesses’ testimony and presented evidence satisfied the jury, and the ten-member jury awarded Gaffney the maximum statutory damages totaling $1.65 million and an additional $1.1 million in damages and infringer profits.
“The jury awarded $1.65 million in statutory damages. These are damages set by the Copyright Act. The usual range is $750 to $30,000 per work, but for willful infringement, the maximum goes up to $150,000 per work,” Glaser Weil associate Jason Linger tells PetaPixel. “In our case, the jury found willful infringement and awarded the maximum of $150,000 per photograph because there were 11 photographs by Gaffney that were eligible for statutory damages.”
Linger explains that the additional damages were awarded based on calculations concerning the gross revenue earned by the defendants using the infringing photographs and applying a royalty percentage.
“We presented evidence that Defendants earned gross revenue of over $8 million from their use of Gaffney’s photographs,” Linger says.
The jury also awarded about $362,000 in actual damages, calculated by determining a lost license fee Gaffney would have realistically earned had the defendants appropriately licensed the images from him.
“This is an important victory for all photographers. Photographs are a form of intellectual property protected by copyright. This case sends a powerful message that a large company can still be held accountable if they misuse someone else’s works,” Linger adds.
Image credits: Featured image © Michael Gaffney
